PARIS.- While Khmer art is known around the world for its stone monuments, recent excavations have provided dramatic breakthroughs regarding our knowledge about its significant bronze statues. Guimet will be dedicating an exhibition to bronze from 30 April to 8 September 2025: “Angkor Royal Bronzes: Art of the Divine".

The highlight of this exhibition will be the Reclining Vishnu from West Mebon, an 11th century statue that originally measured over five metres, which was found in a temple in western Angkor. After having undergone scientific analyses and restoration in France in 2024, with the support of ALIPH (International alliance for the protection of heritage in conflict areas), this national treasure of Cambodia will be exhibited for the very first time with restored fragments. Presented with more than 200 pieces, including 126 exceptional loans from the National Museum of Cambodia, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey to major Khmer heritage sites to discover the evolution of bronze art in Cambodia, from the 9th century to modern day.

Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire which dominated mainland Southeast Asia for over five centuries, has kept the vestiges of its past glory: monuments of unparalleled beauty and scale. But while the architecture and stone statues of the Khmer Empire temples (9th to 14th centuries) are frequently celebrated, it is often forgotten that these Buddhist and Brahmanical shrines used to host a whole population of divinities and objects of worship made of precious metals: gold, silver and gilt bronze.

In Cambodia, bronze—a noble alloy of copper, tin and lead—gave rise to masterpieces attesting to the Khmer rulers’ loyalty to Hinduism and Buddhism. Metalwork was exclusively commissioned by the king and involved a sacred technique, carefully guarded within the confines of the workshops next to the royal palace, whether in Angkor (9th – 14th/15th centuries), Oudong (17th – 19th centuries) or Phnom Penh (19th – 20th centuries).

This exhibition explores, for the very first time, the role of the king, who commissioned major bronze castings from the Angkorian period to modern day, and reveals how art and power have remained consistently intertwined.

With exceptional loans from the the National Museum of Cambodia, granted by the Royal Government, as part of the collaboration between the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, the C2RMF (French centre of museum research and restoration), the EFEO (École française d’Extrême-Orient) and Guimet, this unique exhibition brings together statues, objects and architectural elements as well as photographs, casts and graphic documents, placing them in their cultural, archaeological and historical context.

Curation:

Pierre Baptiste, director of conservation and collections at Guimet, curator of the Southeast Asia section

Brice Vincent, senior lecturer at Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)

David Bourgarit, research engineer, French centre for museum research and restoration (C2RMF)

Thierry Zéphir, research engineer in charge of Himalayan collections at Guimet